War in Iraq falls off media radar

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_7705432

Other news stories dominate

By Joanne Ostrow
Denver Post TV Critic
Article Last Updated: 12/13/2007 07:11:16 PM MST

Sit through a random newscast or a half-hour of cable TV news, or listen to your favorite radio talker. In other words, take the temperature of America via the media and identify what's missing.

Is America at war with immigrants? Is the mortgage crisis the hottest topic in America? Is the public transfixed by the latest candidates' debate?

Don't look now but there's a war on.

The war in Iraq is the biggest nonstory of the moment, an overarching situation that is largely missing in action from the daily media rundown.

The awful phrase that news managers, producers and editors use to describe what's happening is "war fatigue." That's not meant to suggest that soldiers are tired of fighting or that military hospitals are tired of patching up mutilated bodies. The phrase refers to consumers' mind-set.

It's much easier to watch the cute holiday gift guides or rundowns on the latest technology must-haves.

There's no doubt, Iraq is declining as a media story.

[spanone]

1. by next years election, Iraq will be a non-issue ....media complicity

[EFerrari]

2. You'd think all those freeps who are so bent on "funding the troops"

would like to know exactly what they are buying.

[madokie]

4. apparently the 32 million non built military base in Iraq didn't wake 'em up either

how can so many people be so blind and still find their way to work each day is what I want to know ;-)

[EFerrari]

5. Lol! And how many stories have there been about the neglect

of those very same troops -- the bad Haliburton water, the meal overcounts, unarmored Humvees, no body armor, half of their votes uncounted, tours that keep getting longer, no enough down time, treatment denied for PTSD -- it just goes on and on.

[THUNDER HANDS]

3. people have accepted we're going to be there forever

if you look at it honestly, we're never leaving there. Oh, the troop levels will be different, but on whole, Iraq is now what Korea was 50 years ago.